Death and Decisions
by StarWarrior72
Summary: What if Luke died in Imperial prison and Vader never got the chance to say goodbye? Deathfic. Rating for death.


Vader knelt before the hologram of the Emperor, "My Master, I had a vision."

"And what was this vision?" the Emperor sneered.

"It was nothing that concerns your Empire, but my son." Vader knew he was asking for too much, but he had to try. It was his right, as a father, to say goodbye to his only child.

"What do you want with the boy?"

"In the vision, I saw that his sentence is almost over. All I ask is the chance to say goodbye."

"You have missed your chance, Lord Vader. Skywalker is dead."

Vader felt his heart squeeze up. Luke had been all that had remained of his beloved wife, all that was left from a better life.

"He left you a message, however. It was his last wish that this holo reach you." The Emperor held up a disk, "I have sent you a copy, Lord Vader." He cut the transmission.

Vader stood and left the transmission area. He felt hollow and empty. He had hoped to get one last chance to get his son back. He had hoped that the boy would see. He had thought, foolishly, that he might get another chance at having a family. He had longed to see his son curled in a ball reading a data pad or practicing using the Force. His son was supposed to be a second chance, and now the boy was gone forever.

He downloaded the holo and started to watch it.

Luke sat at a table, his hands restrained and a blaster pressed against his head.

The man holding the blaster laughed at Luke, "How do you feel about your father, then, Boy? As an aspiring Jedi you must hate having a Sith father."

Luke's hands curled into fists, "I love my father."

The blaster was jabbed between Luke's shoulder blades, "You must be ashamed of that, though, aren't you?"

"No. No, I'm not ashamed at all! It's natural and normal to love your parents!"

The interrogator was getting annoyed with Luke's claims, "His actions must embarrass you though. You must be angry that he doesn't want you."

"I'm not angry. I'm sure that he has good reasons not to take me in."

"It must make you wonder what your mother would have thought of you. Did she even want a child?"

"I don't know. I would hope that one of them was interested in being a parent and that I wasn't just a mistake."

"How can you be so sure that your mother even knew your father? Vader is somewhat lacking in morals."

Luke sat straight up, "Don't you _dare_ say things like that about my father! He's a better person than you could ever hope to be! And he loved my mom." Luke slumped again, embarrassed by his outburst.

"What makes you say that? You've dedicated your life to fighting him. He kills anyone who opposes him. Even his own son," the man pressed the blaster back into Luke's hair to emphasize his point.

"My father is a great person! He is the best ruler the galaxy could hope for. He defends what he believes is right and he doesn't let any kind of personal attachment get in the way of protecting his sense of justice. If you had to choose between the galaxy and your own family, what would you choose?"

"My family, of course. I would do what any good father would do, what yours isn't doing."

"That would be the right choice for your family, but you'd doom the rest of the galaxy. My father is protecting the galaxy and I posed a threat to his peace. By letting me die he is making it clear that he'd do anything to protect the galaxy. It's a rare and valuable ability to be able to take the 'I' out of a problem. It's something that I'll admit I can't do, but my father can."

"What about his last minute decision not to come to be with you as you died? How do you feel about the fact that he doesn't even have a few minutes to spend with you?"

"He's very busy, you know that. I understand that he doesn't have time, he uses all the time he has to make sure that the Empire is safe from the Alliance. My father is a hero, and I am proud of him!"

"Then why did you fight him? If he's so great what compelled you to join the rebels?"

"I think that my father does a great job of defending what he thinks is right. I disagree with him on what is right. My father is a brave fighter, a brilliant strategist and a great leader. I wish that he'd had time for me, but I can understand that there are more important things to him than his family."

The man with the blaster sneered, "Wasn't that sweet." He pulled the trigger and a smoking hole appeared in Luke's head.

Vader felt his heart break again as his lifeless son slumped on the table. _Goodbye, my son. I loved you too._ Suddenly his anger grew, _How could he just kill Luke like that? He pulled the trigger so casually and an unarmed prisoner's life was ended in a heartbeat. He didn't even blink._ There was a tearing feeling deep in his chest, _Just as I have done on countless occasions._

Vader marched into the prison where his son had died, "Where is my son's body?"

A trembling aide led Vader into a small room full of bodies. Each lay on a small table, taller ones bent a little bit. Luke's small body was stretched out across a table, far too short to need to be compressed to fit on the table.

Vader walked over to his son's table and gathered the tiny body into his arms. Luke's head rolled grotesquely so that it rested on Vader's shoulder. The father in Vader was screaming for his baby, the tiny, innocent baby he never got the chance to know.

Vader had almost left the facility when he saw the man who had pulled the trigger and ended his child's life. Vader started to gather the Dark Side, but it hurt. It caused him the kind of pain he had caused his son when using it. He let the Dark Side go and turned to leave the facility before the man saw him.

Back home, Vader laid his son on the table. Luke looked so small, so young, and so very innocent. If Vader turned his head to the left so he couldn't see the hole in the boy's head, it looked as though Luke was just asleep. Like he could wake up at any moment, like he might suddenly open his eyes and ask where he was. Like nothing had changed.

Vader felt a chill run up his spine. He hadn't had Padme's body to bury all those years ago. She had had a magnificent funeral on her home planet. He didn't know what to do for Luke's small body. He felt that the boy should have a Jedi funeral, but he'd never made a funeral pyre either.

Vader felt his heart twist again as he realized that he was the only person in the galaxy who cared enough to send his son into the Force and also had access to the child's broken body.

Vader moved into his own room. He turned up the oxygen content of his castle to what he required and changed into a tunic. As he turned to return to his son's body he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a darkened window. _Luke would have been terrified if he'd seen me. My poor baby, we never even really saw each other._

He sat on the table and put his son's head on his lap. As he ran his mechanical hands through his boy's hair in an effort to comb the many knots out of his hair, he thought sadly._ Oh, my son. My little baby. My only beloved son. You were the best child a man could ask for. I wish that I had been as good a father._

_I was never there for you when you needed me. You never crawled on to my lap so that I could Band-Aid and kiss your skinned knee. It wasn't me that walked you to your first day of preschool and had to pry you off my leg and push you inside. You never ran home so you could show me your report card, or hide it. I wasn't there to hold you when your first crush broke your heart._

_We never celebrated your birthday. I never got mad at you because you 'forgot' to do your homework. You never pestered me because you wanted a pet. I never heard you laugh. You never came running to me after a nightmare. I never held you and comforted you. _

_I never watched you laughing and playing with your friends. You never kept me awake all night with your crying. You never left your clothes all over the floor for me to clean up. It never frustrated me that you grew up so fast. I never tripped over toys that you'd left on the floor._

_What did we do together? Nothing that I can be proud of. We fought with weapons that could have killed either one of us. I cut off your hand. I scared you. I beat you and broke you and told you that I hated you. Oh, Luke, my little baby, I never meant it._

_I wish that I could blame this on someone else, but I can't. You were my baby and I should have been more careful. I should have been there for you and I should have had time for you. This should never have had the chance to happen._

Suddenly Vader heard his communications chamber booting up. He carefully moved his son back off his lap and rested the body back on the table. He moved to his communications chamber and activated it. It engineered his image so that it would look like he was wearing his suit, as long as he didn't move too fast.

"Lord Vader, you are not yourself." The Emperor cackled.

"Master?"

"Your son was killed, but you did not kill the man who killed him."

Vader glanced over his shoulder at the body on the table and decided that he owed his son the truth. "It is not what my son would have wanted. Luke would have been ashamed if I had reacted to his death by ending the lives of people who were only doing their jobs. When I reached into the Force I felt the pain I'd caused my son. I'm worthless to you now, you may as well kill me. For the twenty years I was loyal to you, I'd like to have a few moments to go back to my son and hold his body one last time."

The Emperor was furious. He had lost two good subjects for Sith training today, Luke to death, and Vader to Anakin. He did his best to hide it, "Yes, Lord Vader. You may."

Anakin turned off the transmission and walked back to his son's body. He got up on the table again and rested Luke's body on his lap again. He slipped his arms around his lifeless son and pressed his scarred lips against his son's forehead.

"Goodbye, my baby."

The _Executor_, which hung in orbit, got the message from the Emperor and purged Vjun of all remaining life.

At first everything was dark and Anakin assumed that this was Sith-hell, then,

"Dad?"

"Luke? Is that you?"

"Daddy?" a little boy came to Anakin out of the darkness. Soft, blond hair framed his small face.

"Luke?"

The little boy nodded seriously.

"Where are we, Luke?"

"Where we belong." Luke said simply and took his father's hand.

Anakin watched in amazement as the boy held up one hand and the darkness dissipated.

Luke turned to smile at his father, "Let's go find Mom."

And Luke led his father into the light.


End file.
